I have a pair of boots that my mom gave me to use with boot covers. They fit under the boot covers perfectly, but I would like to glue the boot covers to the boots to make everything easier. The problem is that the boots have a zipper on the side and I can't get my feet in them if they aren't unzipped first. They are a couple inches over the ankle, so if they were cut down I wouldn't need to zip them. I was wondering if there was any way I could cut them to the size I need and remove the zipper? I don't own a sewing machine so if there's any sewing involved, note that it will be done by hand.

I'm not sure if you're still looking for input on this, but you might be able to tightly whip stitch around the zipper while it's zipped up. Whip stitch it up to the point where you'd want to cut the boots off and take a heavy duty pair of scissors to cut off the excess material and the zipper. Just make sure you don't cut the zipper below where you whip-stitched it, it will be a lot harder to sew it up without it being zipped! (Alternatively, you could use a heavy-duty stapler to staple along the zipper, but you'd want to line the boots if you did so that the staples wouldn't scratch you) Also, if you were to use this method, you'd probably want to finish the cut edges with something, even if it's just hot gluing on some bias tape, since the edges will probably be fairly jagged, especially on the zipper.